Football Week 10 thebatseyeview My creative give-a-damn is broken. Funny how a depressing game can lead to a depressing... EVERYTHING else. UGA has had two off weeks this season and I havent had one yet... So, I will borrow some print from a person I deem to be informed, intelligent and consistent and throw in some observations of my own. This may seem like me just getting things off my chest and - well, I guess that is exactly what it is. 1. This is from a buddy and personal hero of mine: US Army, Cavalry Officer- Stu Gittelman: So, heres the real question for the Bulldog nation: What do you truly want from the football program? And I mean that at the most elemental level. After 14 seasons of Mark Richt, we pretty much know that this year is going to end like just about every other year: well be the best 9-3 team in the country. Again. And thats what well be in 2015. And 2016. And 2017. Well finish 9-3, itll be pretty entertaining, episodically frustrating, hugely profitable, well have a generally clean program, and the coach will be a good man. Those are not necessarily bad things. But understand that if Richt stays, were highly unlikely to be an SEC - let alone national - champion. So, are you OK with that? The alternative is to become a much more high-risk/high-reward program. In the time Mark Richt has been at Georgia, programs like Alabama, Auburn, Florida State, LSU, and others have more or less gone from champions to horrible and back. They have national titles; they also have pathetically inept losing seaons in between. Youll fire a lot of coaches, youll have players like Jameis Winston and Cam Newton and Tyrone Mattheu. Youll have games with lots of empty seats. Sure, youll get a trophy or two, but itll suck pretty hard in between. So, are you OK with that? Organizationally, I think as much as UGA talks a great game about being the best, I think the athletic department temperamentally is quite satisfied with being pretty good and calling it a day. This is precisely why management guru Jim Collins opined that, Good is the enemy of great. In UGA footballs case, theyre very good. Which makes them greats arch enemy. 2. Whats is the purpose of a light jacket? There might be two days a year to wear it. It would have to be 62-66 degrees, cloudy but no wind for it to make sense. 3. Expecting a Ga/Fla game to go as predicted is just like expecting to receive good customer service from a Halloween store employee. Speaking of Halloween stores... how many were there in Athens this year? I can think of 5. Is Halloween popular enough to outnumber grocery stores 3 to 1? 4. Rachel Maddow was on Seth Meyers last night. She says Obamacare is working. She doesnt understand why Democrats are distancing themselves from Obama with the mid-term elections approaching. Name one person, who works and was already paying for health insurance , who is now paying less than before Obamacare. This is not a Democrat or Republican issue... It doesnt matter where your allegiance lies... Numbers dont lie... Politicians do! 5. When handing the radio broadcast over to Scott Howard, Chuck Dowdle sounded like Howard Deans political meltdown scream from 2004. Uncharacteristic of him…He must have hit the sauce early. 6. David Andrews may be the most under-appreciated OL we have had in 10 years. During the Tennessee game, there was a camera that followed him on every play for the better part of 2 whole series. Those of us at the game couldnt see it, but I have had the pleasure of sitting next to his mother, Patricia White Andrews and several other members of her family. Her phone was blowing up with people informing her of the coverage. Luckily I recorded the game and had a chance to watch it with the commentary. He is a bad ass and a great leader of men. Once he went down on Saturday... I felt a cold wind blow through the room. After I closed the door, I watched the Florida defense step it up a notch and take over the game. I havent heard how he is doing, but I certainly hope he is on the mend and will not miss any playing time. 7. Nick Chubb is just as good today as he was two weeks ago when everyone was singing his praises. So the kid fumbled. Hes a freshman. He has put the team on his shoulders 3 times in four weeks. He gave UGA 215 all-purpose yards and two TDs. All you idiots with posts, tweets, memes or even negative thoughts about this guy need to think back to the boy you were at 18 years old. Ill bet you dont measure up to Chubb. 8. Hutson Mason finally broke the 200 yard mark! 319 yards on 42 attempts. 42 attempts! Twice as many attempts as Chubb had carries. How many of Masons 16 incompletions were dropped or defended well? Several. How many were poor passes? Most of them. I am not a Mason hater. I am a somewhat intelligent student of the game with two good eyes and keen sense of logic. We abandoned our game plan as soon as Florida took the lead. Asking Mason to throw 42 times and put the team on his back is like trying to make orange juice from okra. Yes oranges and okra have some of the same letters but they couldnt look or be more different. Brice Ramsey may not be the best QB in America. He may not have been the best QB in the stadium... but he was the logical choice to turn to when UGA went down by three scores in the second half. He has the arm strength to stretch the field, and if you have read my previous weeks posts, you know that Ole Button Fly does not. The difference is easy to see... just like oranges and okra. 9. Now that another National Championship is out of the picture, it is time to prepare for next year. We wasted AJ Green, Matt Stafford, Knowshon Moreno, Aaron Murray and now, Todd Gurley. These players were difference makers and game breakers and our current staff found a way to win ZERO championships with them. Moreno didnt even play until the third or fourth game of his redshirt Sophomore year! After his first carry, I knew he was special. How could I see it but the coaching staff couldnt? We have recruited 5-star players that come to UGA, become mediocre and then go to Pro Bowls. My point is, Richt and crew have not recognized talent in some cases and did not develop talent in others. Ramsey has been on campus for almost two years now. I hear that he doesnt have a grasp of the offense yet. That is not developing the talent! The kid has a cannon! DEVELOP HIM AND WE ARE NOT ONE-DIMENSIONAL! Develop him now for next year. We have two freshman RBs that look better than Gurshall as freshmen. We have Isaiah McKenzie, we should have Malcolm Mitchell and Justin Scott Wesley back. Our defense has a bunch of young studs... All we are missing is a QB with experience. Put Ramsey in the game and get him some valuable experience...we have nothing else to lose this year. 10. I know we could still make the SEC Championship game if Missouri drops a game to Texas A&M, Arkansas or Tennessee but I dont want to just MAKE IT to the game. We MADE IT to the Georgia Dome 2 years ago and lost a National Championship that night because we couldnt spike the ball. I want UGA to march into that game again one day with everything on the line and have them feel confident with a great game plan, excellent time management and fearless, ball-crushing moxy from their head coach. Could that be next year? 11. A 65-yard exclamation point capped off the 2nd worst day in the history of UGA run defense. Florida had a 192 yard and a 197 yard rusher. UGA had better figure out how to stop the running game before Auburn and GT or else this season will take another nose dive...just like last year. 12. Lately, several ACC fans have made comments that the ESPN broadcast is slanted to the SEC. Well... Its because the SEC is the best conference and has been for well over a decade. Does anyone remember Trevor Berbick? He didnt have many 30 for 30s made about him. He never had a video game named after him. He never made a cameo appearance in a blockbuster movie either, but he did get his ass kicked by Iron Mike, as Tyson won his first heavyweight title. Berbick had to have been pretty good to get in the ring with Tyson...but he was no Tyson. Other conferences have good teams, even some great ones, but they are not tested week in and week out like they would be in the SEC. I am not trying to make a case here. It has been made on the gridiron too many times. I am just encouraging the haters to realize how bitter, ignorant and silly you sound. ESPN will give you credit when you have earned it. Yes, FSU won the title last year but the ACC is 5-13 in BCS bowl games... Meanwhile the SEC is 17-10. Numbers dont lie! 13. Theres always next week. Theres always next year. Go DAWGS!
Posted on: Mon, 03 Nov 2014 04:05:52 +0000